Tag Archives: humor

Muhammad Ali on Joe Frazier

Posted on February 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Frazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wild Life.”

Muhammad Ali

Excerpted from: Sherrin, Ned, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996.

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The Algonquin Wits: Aleck Woollcott and Charles MacArthur Take a Vacation

Posted on January 30, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Aleck Woollcott and playwright Charles MacArthur once took a voyage to Europe together. After their ship had been two days at sea, MacArthur emerged onto the deck to join Aleck, confiding to him, ‘I can’t get over the feeling that I’m on a boat.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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Voltaire with Some Timely Words on Government

Posted on January 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

“In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.”

Voltaire

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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Rotten Reviews: A Joseph Heller Omnibus

Posted on January 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

We Bombed in New Haven

“A dud of the first magnitude…”

Saturday Review

Something Happened

“…surely it’s time to declare a moratorium on brain-damaged children used as metaphors for mental and emotional decay.”

Library Journal 

Good as Gold

“…a self-indulgent ventilation of private spleen…Heller operates as if he were a jewel thief wearing boxing gloves.”

Newsweek

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.   

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H.L. Mencken on Communism

Posted on December 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.”

H.L Mencken

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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G.K. Chesterton on Social Class

Posted on October 31, 2025 | Leave a comment

“The classes that wash most are those that work least.”

G.K. Chesterton

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Architect

Posted on October 24, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Architect, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

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Emerson on the End of the Human Race

Posted on October 16, 2025 | Leave a comment

“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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Ferdie Pacheco on the Ali/Spinks Fight

Posted on September 19, 2025 | Leave a comment

“They’re selling video cassettes of the Ali-Spinks fight for $89.95. Hell, for that money, Spinks will come to your house.”

Ferdie Pacheco

Excerpted from: Sherrin, Ned, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996.

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The Doubter’s Companion: Biography

Posted on September 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Biography: Respectable pornography, thanks to which the reader can become a peeping tom on the life of a famous person.

Biography has increasingly replaced the novel as the most popular form of serious reading. While in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the novel provided the reader with a reflection of him or herself, today the biography encourages the gratuitous pleasures and self-delusion of voyeurism.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

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